Strange Wu

Why did Congressman David Wu think staffers “threatened to shut down his campaign”?

U.S. Rep. David Wu - IMAGE: WW Staff

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Rep. David Wu says spasms of severe neck
pain caused him to seek painkillers from a donor in a pre-election
episode one week before he won re-election Nov. 2. The Oregon Democrat
now acknowledges the incident disturbed his own staff.

“I recognize that my action showed poor judgment at the time,” Wu said in a written statement to WW on Feb. 22. “I sincerely regret having put my staff in a difficult position.”

That
troubling moment marked just one example of Wu’s unpredictable behavior
in the frantic last days of his seventh successful election campaign,
close observers of the congressman say.

As first reported by WW
on wweek.com the afternoon of Feb. 18, a series of events caused
political advisers to worry about Wu’s mental health and prompted
staffers to stage two “interventions” to urge Wu to seek psychiatric
help.

During
that period four months ago, Wu played down his political team’s
concerns about his condition and the possible root cause of his
problems. He went on to win re-election against Republican challenger
Rob Cornilles, with 55 percent of the vote. But seven staffers, three
political consultants and his campaign treasurer severed ties with the
congressman after the election in the wake of the confrontations.

Last week, Wu denied a request from WW
for a face-to-face interview in Washington, D.C., choosing instead to
respond in writing to questions through his D.C. spokesman.

“I freely admit that
it was an intense campaign, and I was not always at my best with staff
or constituents,” he said in a prepared statement Feb. 14. “For all
those moments, I wish I’d been better and I apologize.”

Wu has since acknowledged seeking medical care for his problems.

In an interview Feb. 22 with ABC’s Good Morning America,
Wu said last fall “was a very difficult time” for him and that he
accepted both counseling and medication then. Wu said, “I sought
appropriate help at the time and I continue to do that.”

He denied WW’s further requests for comment about emails and photographs obtained by WW that were sent from his federally issued BlackBerry in the early-morning hours of Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010. But Wu told Good Morning America they
were “very, very unprofessional.” The emails and photos, including one
of him in a tiger costume, reveal a bizarre portrait of Wu right before
the Nov. 2 general election.

Wu’s district, a
Democratic stronghold, encompasses some of Oregon’s biggest economic
engines, like Nike and Intel. The 1st Congressional District begins on
the west side of Portland and stretches through Washington County to
Astoria on the north coast, serving 700,000 residents with diverse
interests, from microchip manufacturing to fishing, that cross Oregon’s
rural-urban divide.

Wu, a
55-year-old former lawyer and graduate of Stanford University and Yale
Law School, has represented the district since 1999. The Taiwan-born
politician may be best known for his public stance against China’s
human-rights abuses. But Wu’s record also includes funding for new
high-tech training programs and efforts to hold down the costs of
college textbooks, as well as traditional Democratic causes like
protecting abortion rights. He’s long been known as a geeky, low-key
and, at times, awkward politician.

“That’s part of his
charm,” says Jim Moore, a political science professor at Pacific
University in Wu’s district. “He’s basically a nerd. He admits fully
that his social skills are not very well developed. He admits that he’s
not that great at glad-handing, but he’s a hard worker.”

Staffers who have
worked for Wu would recognize this side of Wu’s personality. But sources
say the final weeks before the November election marked a dramatic
difference in Wu’s conduct; no single event appears to have prompted
staff to conduct the two interventions.

In
the aftermath, political observers are wondering whether Wu—who had zero
experience in electoral politics when he rose to federal office through
a combination of luck and traditional hardball politics—can survive.
The congressman said in the TV interview Feb. 22 he “emphatically can
do” the work of a congressman and will stay on. Wu’s 2010 GOP challenger
says the question should matter to voters regardless of party
affiliation.

“District 1 is really
the epicenter of Oregon economically,” Cornilles says. “If we’re
struggling or we’re being neglected, the whole state suffers. Do we have
to wait two more years? Or can he right himself before then?”

I GOT STRIPES: This photo of U.S. Rep. David Wu landed in staffers’ inboxes after 1 am on a Saturday morning as concerns about the Democratic congressman’s behavior grew. A spokesman for Wu called the photo “a moment with his kids.”

Wu’s increasingly odd behavior and communication typified by the set of emails WW
has obtained so troubled staff that sources say the employees
deliberately hid Wu from public view during the last three days of his
campaign. That unusual step came even as Wu’s Republican opponent
furiously fought for votes.

But it wasn’t just
staff who noticed Wu’s bewildering behavior. Members of the public also
noticed that Wu appeared to be under stress in the final days before the
Nov. 2 election.

On Tuesday, Oct. 26,
Wu had dinner at Aquariva on the South Waterfront with a donor named
Paul O’Brien, an author and speaker on spiritual topics who contributed
the federal maximum of $4,800 to Wu in 2010.

“He
was in fundraising mode, and the guy was dying of pain in his neck from
being on the phone so much,” O’Brien says. “He was on edge because the
election was a week away.”

O’Brien
says he gave Wu tablets of ibuprofen to ease Wu’s pain, but that
apparently upset a female aide accompanying the congressman. O’Brien
recalls the exchange between Wu and the staffer was a “conflict.”

“I
gave him a couple of ibuprofen and she was so weird,” O’Brien says.
“She was trying to control him in a very strange way. I didn’t
understand that.... But no, no, nothing untoward happened.”

Wu’s
full statement on the topic goes further, although he declined to
answer follow-up questions. “Last fall, I had occasional spasms of
severe neck pain for which I took medication that was prescribed by my
doctor. At a meeting last October with a campaign contributor, I
experienced a severe episode, but my prescription medicine was in
Washington, D.C., at the time. The donor offered me an alternative
painkiller, and I took two tablets. This was the only time that this has
ever happened.”

The
next day, Wednesday, Oct. 27, Wu appeared before Washington County
Democrats. A Beaverton woman complained in a fax to Wu’s office about
Wu’s “loud, fearsome tones,” calling parts of his speech “in
poor taste.” She added: “If you are defeated, I believe you have no one
to blame but yourself.”

Then, around midday
on Thursday, Oct. 28, Wu was inside Central Drugs, a pharmacy on
Southwest 4th Avenue, running routine errands, sources say. Other Wu
staffers wanted to speak with him about his behavior, which struck them
as bizarre. They confronted him at the store, but he refused to return
to the office.

According to multiple
sources, Wu went instead to Ping, a nearby restaurant, for lunch. Only
after he left Ping did those staffers stage the first “intervention,” an
emotional meeting that spanned several hours during which staffers told
the congressman they were worried about his health. Wu insisted he was
fine.

The next day, Wu
attended a small luncheon at Davis Street Tavern hosted by the
Democratic Party of Oregon. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius was the main guest.

Michele
Stranger-Hunter, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon, attended
the lunch with about two dozen people. When asked to describe Wu’s
behavior at the lunch, Stranger-Hunter’s first words were “Oh, lord.”

“He had a lot of energy he brought to that election,” she recalls. “He was feeling very stressed.”

In particular, Wu was
upset about an internal dispute in Congress involving some Democrats’
objections to language in the federal healthcare reform bill related to
abortion. Wu’s agitation struck some onlookers as surprising.

“He was projecting his voice,” Stranger-Hunter says. “He was definitely not yelling.”

That night at
Portland International Airport, according to a four-page incident report
from the Port of Portland, Wu sought special access to get through the
security checkpoint in order to greet his children at the gate. The
report said he then began asking deplaning passengers for their votes.
At one point, the report said Wu gave a “high-five” to a transportation
security officer.

TIGER’S TALE: A second photo, sent from Wu’s Blackberry, went to staffers in the early hours of Oct. 30. WW has blacked out the face of the child, believed to be Wu’s son. It’s unclear what exactly this photo depicts.

Separate from these
events, staffers discussed with Wu his plans to attend a Halloween party
with family and friends, an event right before the Tuesday election.
Sources tell WW that campaign aides had advised Wu not to dress
in any costume that could potentially embarrass him. They worried that a
goofy getup could provide fodder for last-minute campaign attacks from
Cornilles, Wu’s well-financed Republican opponent, in what had been
expected to be a close contest.

What follows here is a
series of email messages sent to multiple staffers in the early-morning
hours of Saturday, Oct. 30, from Wu’s BlackBerry.

The emails do not
offer a definitive account why Wu aides fled the congressman’s office in
significant numbers. They do reveal that Wu’s staffers apparently had
confronted the congressman about his drinking. They also suggest Wu
faced accusations of harassment from his employees—and that Wu wasn’t
eager to listen to any of their advice. At
1:03 am PST on Saturday, Oct. 30, an email from Wu’s congressional
BlackBerry landed in the inbox of a female staffer. The congressman, who
splits his time between Washington, D.C., and Oregon, was then in
Portland.

There
was no message attached to the email, only a single image. That photo
showed Wu in a plush tiger suit with orange- and black-striped mittens
over his hands, a hood with tiger ears pulled over his head and a white
fur chest split by a zipper stretched over his stomach. A seemingly
red-faced Wu is sitting on a bench in what appears to be a bedroom, with
his hands held in the air.

A spokesman, Erik
Dorey, last week called the photo a private moment among family members.
He further described the photo as “David Wu joshing around with his
kids the day before Halloween.”

Nineteen minutes
later, at 1:22 am PST, a second email from Wu’s official email address
went out to multiple Wu staffers under the subject line “not funny.”

The
email read as if it had come from one of Wu’s two children; the name of
his middle-school-aged daughter appeared at the end as a signature.
After three days of refusing to answer WW’s questions about who sent the emails in the wee hours of the morning, Wu took responsibility during the Good Morning America
interview on Feb. 22. The prospect that Wu was pretending to be his
child had disturbed staffers. The email—“You’re the best, but my Dad
made me say that, even though you threatened to shut down his
campaign”—suggests Wu had been sparring with his staff.

Ten minutes later a
third email went to two female staffers. This time, it contained another
photo and a similar “you’re the best” message. The name of Wu’s son
appeared at the bottom of that email.

Whether the photo
depicts a staged or real event is uncertain. Someone, apparently Wu, is
wearing the full-body tiger costume, this time face-down on a made bed
with his arms at his side, as if asleep or passed out.

A wallet and
headphones are strewn next to him on the bed. Behind him, a child who
appears to be Wu’s 13-year-old son stands beside the bed dressed in a
T-shirt and khaki pants with his hands on Wu’s shoulders. It is not
clear whether the boy is trying to wake his father, give him a back rub
or play along with a joke.

Six
minutes later, at 1:38 am, a fourth email arrived in staffers’ inboxes.
The content related to Wu’s drinking. The subject line contained one
word: “wasted.”

The
email, with Wu’s son’s name at the end, said: “My Dad said you said he
was wasted Wednesday night after just three sips of wine. It’s just that
he hasn’t had a drink since July 1. Cut him some slack, man. What he
does when he’s wasted is send emails, not harass people he works with.
He works SO hard for you.… Cut the dude some slack, man. Just kidding.”

(If it’s true that Wu
had wine that week, that would contradict a Feb. 14 statement the
congressman made in response to a written question from WW. “I,
as part of a weight loss push, stopped drinking last year for five
months,” Wu said through a spokesman, referring to a period beginning
July 1 and lasting until Dec. 1. “I have had a drink on occasion since
then.”)

At 1:40 am, a fifth
email from Wu’s BlackBerry arrived with both children’s names at the end
of the message. It appears directed at one of Wu’s many longtime
staffers, some of whom had worked for the congressman for about 12
years.

“My Dad says you’re the best because not even my Mom put up with him,” the email said. “[Y]ou have. We think you’re cool.”

Until announcing
their separation in 2009, Wu and his second wife, Michelle, 48, had been
married for about 13 years. Wu maintained custody of their two
children, which meant he was juggling a hectic congressional schedule as
well as a busy life as a single parent.

Almost immediately
following the flurry of late-night emails, Wu’s staffers staged a second
intervention to urge Wu to seek psychiatric help and voluntarily enter a
hospital. A smaller group of aides attended the second meeting, which
also spanned several hours. At the end of it, Wu’s staffers withdrew him
from public view. They took him to a private home in Portland to wait
out the election.

On Feb. 18, after WW
published its account at wweek.com of the final days of Wu’s
re-election campaign, the congressman told reporters through a spokesman
that his stress before the election was, in part, the result of his
father’s death. However, his father passed away more than three weeks
after the election from natural causes at the age of 87, according to
published reports.

The inevitable question is, what’s next for Wu? If he does
survive politically, it would not be the first time Wu has overcome
difficult public scrutiny.

On Oct. 12, 2004—three days before ballots started arriving in mailboxes—The Oregonian
revealed sexual-assault allegations against Wu from 1976, when he was a
Stanford undergraduate. Wu wasn’t prosecuted; no charges were ever
filed. But the woman (whom the daily newspaper described as Wu’s
ex-girlfriend) told counselors and professors that Wu had attempted to
rape her, according to the newspaper’s secondhand sources.

After declining to address the allegations with the daily, Wu finally issued a public statement.

“Twenty-eight years
ago, I had a two-year romantic relationship with a fellow college
student that ended with inexcusable behavior on my part.… As a
21-year-old, I hurt someone I cared very much about. I take full
responsibility for my actions and I am very sorry.”

Today, Wu stands out
from his four Oregon colleagues in the House because his financial
support in Oregon is not so deep as that of other Oregon members of the
House; Wu gets the most out-of-state campaign funding by far—almost 60
percent compared with the next biggest recipient, Democrat Earl
Blumenauer, who gets 47 percent of his cash from non-Oregonians,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The recent case of
Rep. Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) offers a provocative counterpoint to Wu’s
current situation. On Feb. 9, Gawker published a shirtless photo of Lee
that the married congressman had sent to a woman via Craigslist personal
ads. The Republican lawmaker represented himself in emails to the woman
as a divorced lobbyist who was also a “fit fun classy guy.”

Within three hours of
the disclosure of his infidelity, Lee resigned from Congress. Some
reports suggest Republican Speaker John Boehner pressured Lee to resign.

If House Democratic
leaders have exerted pressure on Wu to resign, it’s happened behind
closed doors. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not
acknowledge WW’s repeated requests for comment on Wu’s status in the House. Wu serves on the House education and science committees.

In
important ways, however, Wu’s situation is unlike Lee’s and more like
that of former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.). Kennedy learned in 1994 he
suffered from bipolar disorder, and he remained in office for another
eight terms. Significantly, however, Kennedy showed a willingness to
discuss his challenges openly, even when mental illness gave way to
alcohol and prescription drug addiction.

When news of Wu’s
difficulties broke last week, it was unclear whether Wu had a mental
illness, and he hardly enjoys the empathy Kennedy automatically
engendered in the Northeast. But if Wu’s erratic behavior is the result
of illness or other health concerns, Oregon voters are likely to respond
to those circumstances differently as well.

Through the weekend,
potential Democratic rivals in the 2012 primary kept a low profile.
State Sen. Mark Hass (D-Raleigh Hills), Sen. Suzanne Bonamici
(D-Beaverton) and Rep. Tobias Read (D-Beaverton), three possible
candidates to replace Wu, all demurred when asked whether they would
consider a run.

“I’m really focused on my work in the Senate,” Bonamici told WW. “And there’s no opening.”

Yet Wu himself has
acknowledged there are times when one’s personal decisions interfere
with public life. In 1998, Wu won election in part because of questions
that arose from his opponent’s choice to take a personal loan from a
developer who had business before Washington County. The opponent in the
Democratic primary, Linda Peters, was then county chairwoman.

“Some things in life are strictly personal, and they should stay that way,’” Wu is quoted as saying in The Oregonian in
1998 in reference to Peters. “But there are other times when a person
does things that cross over into their official capacity, into their
official role, and there’s a whole different set of responsibilities
there.”

Jim Moore, the
professor of political science at Pacific University in Wu’s district,
says Wu’s career could survive this latest round of examination. But
Moore also acknowledges that Wu’s private problems have crossed into an
area where they may interfere with his official role.

“Because of the staff
leaving, he’s clearly getting into that area,” Moore says. “To get out
of this he cannot simply hire new staff and be quiet. He has to be
pretty public about dealing with this.”

Wu’s Political History

When David Wu first won his congressional seat in 1998, he had zero elected experience.

A onetime lawyer
specializing in high tech and international trade, Wu served from 1986
to 1989 on Portland’s planning commission, an appointed position.

In 1998, then-Rep. Elizabeth Furse declined to seek a fourth term, opening up a seat in the 1st Congressional District.

Linda Peters, then
Washington County chairwoman, appeared to be Democrats’ best chance of
retaining the seat held by the party since 1975.

But Peters bungled
her frontrunner status in the Democratic primary when she failed to file
a Voters’ Pamphlet statement, got caught paying her property taxes late
and failed to realize the impropriety of taking a $3,500 loan from a
developer who had business before Peters in Washington County.

Wu, in the meantime, mailed flyers that some fellow Democrats denounced as sexist; they showed credit cards spilling out of a woman’s purse
following mild revelations of questionable spending on Washington County
taxpayers’ dime.

“It was hard-fought,
on the edges of impropriety,” says Marc Abrams, then chairman of
Oregon’s Democratic Party. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say what David
did was utterly unacceptable, but it was disappointing.”

He
won the primary by a healthy margin and caught a good break in the
general election when he faced Republican Molly Bordonaro, a 29-year-old
conservative with a thin résumé. Then, on Oct. 21, 1998, WW
dealt Bordonaro a devastating blow by posting on its Web site the
transcript of Bordonaro’s appearance on a Christian radio show two years
prior. In that “K-Praise” radio appearance, Bordonaro struck a far more
conservative note on, among other things, abortion rights. “She changed
her positions more times than Mark Wahlberg and his porn partners in Boogie Nights,” WW wrote of her.

Excerpts of the
transcript appeared in Wu ads. Days later, Wu edged out Bordonaro, with
just over 50 percent of the vote. The power of incumbency and name
recognition have held off serious challengers to his seat ever since.-

—Beth Slovic

Correction: The original version of this story referred imprecisely to a 1998 campaign tactic by then-rookie candidate David Wu. It was a direct-mail piece, not an ad, that showed a woman's purse filled with credit cards. WW regrets the error.